Tymon Mellor: Hong Kong was built from stone and bricks, all held together with a cement mortar. All these materials were locally made using the natural resources Hong Kong could provide. The New Territories are rich in clay, which over the years has been used for pottery and brick manufacturing. The use of air dried bricks for house building was common, and fired bricks have […]
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Tymon Mellor: In 1952 an application was approved for a Temporary Mining Licence number 18 on the Island of Lamma for the exploitation of Manganese. On the hillside above the village of Mo Tat a number of adits were excavated but no commercial quantities of the mineral were discovered. This article describes the abandoned mine workings on Lamma. The current […]
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Tymon Mellor: In 1904, as the Hong Kong Island tram system was readying for operation, attention focused on the opposite side of the harbour on the development of a tram network for Kowloon. After many false starts, just when it seemed that work was about to start on a Kowloon tram network, the Government had a major change of approach […]
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Tymon Mellor: The mine at Lin Ma Hang was the most advanced mining operation in the colonial era of Hong Kong before the Pacific War. However, like many mining ventures, this one had a slow and difficult start. This article explores the discovery and early years of the mine’s development along with the workings that are still visible today in […]
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When Tymon Mellor sent this revised version of his original article on Lin Fa Shan Mine, first posted in November 2014, he suggested it was more a complete re-write. Tymon Mellor: The Lin Fa Shan mine is located in a remote area of the Tai Mo Shan Country Park, on a steep west facing slope of Lin Fa Shan, just […]
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Tymon Mellor: West Brother Island is located between Tuen Mun and Lantau Island. It is 4km away from the northern coast of Lantau Island. The island, along with East Brother Island and Reef Island, are known as The Brothers. The West Brother Island Graphite Mine operated from 1952 to 1971 with most of its production exported to the United Kingdom […]
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Tymon Mellor: Farming in Hong Kong has always been a challenging vocation; small field sizes, labour intensive, often rugged terrain and unpredictable weather. In good times two crops of rice could be grown a year but with erratic rainfall and the expansion of the reservoir catchwaters system, the agricultural community were under pressure. They wanted infrastructure investment to support farming […]
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Tymon Mellor: Those who walk the Maclehose or Wilson Trails, or who enjoy walking in the country parks will be familiar with Lead Mine Pass; the high pass linking Kowloon with the New Territories. But why is it called Lead Mine Pass, where is the mine it is named after? Ever since the New Territories has been part of Hong […]
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Tymon Mellor: The construction of Tai Lam Chung Reservoir in the 1950s was at that time, the largest and most expensive construction project yet in Hong Kong, but when a half page article[i] about the construction of the 12km of tunnels was published in 1956 the photo they used focused on the ever-running supply of water at the site. The […]
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Tymon Mellor: Introduction The mine workings on the south-west slopes of Ma On Shan mountain are now no more than mere scars in the hillside, but in the middle of the last century, the mine provided employment for up to 6,000 people and supplied high grade iron ore and other minerals to the Japanese steel industry. This article describes the […]
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